How the debate ended we are not told; but one thing we know: from that time forth the hated name of “Danegeld” appeared in the Pipe Rolls no more. It seems therefore that, for the first time in English history since the Norman conquest, the right of the nation’s representatives to oppose the financial demands of the Crown was asserted in the council of Woodstock, and asserted with such success that the king was obliged not merely to abandon his project, but to obliterate the last trace of the tradition on which it was founded. And it is well to remember, too, that the first stand made by Thomas of Canterbury against the royal will was made in behalf not of himself or his order but of his whole flock;--in the cause not of ecclesiastical privilege but of constitutional right. The king’s policy may have been really sounder and wiser than the primate’s; but the ground taken by Thomas at Woodstock entitles him none the less to a place in the line of patriot-archbishops of which Dunstan stands at the head.[74] [74] On the different account of this affair given in the _Thomas Saga_, and the view which has been founded on it, see note A at end of chapter. The next few weeks were occupied with litigation over the alienated lands of the metropolitan see. A crowd of claims put in by Thomas and left to await the king’s return now came up for settlement, the most important case being that of Earl Roger of Clare, whom Thomas had summoned to perform his homage for Tunbridge at Westminster on July 22. Roger answered that he held the entire fief by knight-service, to be rendered in the shape of money-payment,[75] of the king and not of the primate.[76] As Roger was connected with the noblest families in England,[77] king and barons were strongly on his side.[78] To settle the question, Henry ordered a general inquisition to be made throughout England to ascertain where the service of each land-holder was lawfully due. The investigation was of course made by the royal justiciars; and when they came to the archiepiscopal estates, one at least of the most important fiefs in dispute was adjudged by them to the Crown alone.[79] [75] “Publicis pensionibus persolvendis.” R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 311. [76] _Ibid._ [77] And had moreover “the fairest sister in the whole kingdom,” adds Will. Fitz-Steph. (Robertson, _Becket_, vol. iii.), p. 43. [78] _Ibid._ [79] R. Diceto (Stubbs), vol. i. p. 311.